Dr. Haddox winces, then brings a hand to his forehead and rubs his temples. The drugging thing bothers him the most. It’s a card I might have to keep on playing.

“Okay,” he says, motioning to the guest chair as he leans back against the bed. But I make no move to sit. “We think there is a chance that you—that all of you here—have something called PANDAS.”

“PANDAS? What’s that?”

“It’s a disorder that results from untreated strep. It can cause a whole range of psychological symptoms, primarily OCD and anxiety, though we suspect there may be a variation in this instance or that the symptoms of PANDAS may be broader than we realized previously, encompassing additional mood disturbances. Have you experienced heightened anxiety recently?”

That’s not a question it’s in my best interest to answer.

“I don’t have strep. I don’t even have a sore throat,” I say instead.

“Strep is often asymptomatic. And in this instance it might have even been food borne. It wouldn’t have the usual symptoms you associate with strep, like a sore throat.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask. “What the hell do you mean, food-borne?”

“I know this is a lot to take in,” he says with a lopsided smile that is closer to a grimace. “It would be easier if they had explained things to your parents the way they were supposed to.”

“Yeah, because you can’t keep me here without my dad’s consent.” Of this much I am 100 percent sure. Assuming that they aren’t going with the whole “danger to yourself” approach, which they don’t seem to be. “That’s illegal.”

Rachel was just talking about this the last time she was over, how it amounts to false imprisonment if the government holds you.

“Not in a situation like this, I don’t think,” Dr. Haddox says, and almost like he feels bad about that. “Listen, I’m a doctor here to evaluate the likelihood of PANDAS. I don’t have all the information. I don’t even know exactly how they isolated all of you. But I am pretty sure they are acting within their discretion legally. The NIH has done this kind of thing before with measles and Ebola.”

“Ebola?” I ask.

“Don’t worry, PANDAS is nothing like Ebola. It was just another example of something that the NIH has dealt with.”

The NIH. Someone called my dad to meet with the NIH in DC on the same day the NIH puts me in some hospital? That is definitely not a coincidence.

“I need to talk to my dad.”

“Absolutely. We already have called him more than once and haven’t been able to reach him,” Dr. Haddox says. “Do you know where he might be?”

Washington, DC. The airplane. That’s probably where he is.

“What time is it?”

“Almost one, I think.”